Read business & professional development these days and you’ll find the word MENTOR mentioned frequently. Mentors are not just for professional settings, though. We have an organization in our community that mentors homeless people who sign up for their program, teaching them skills useful for job searching, budgeting, interviewing, life skills, etc.
Every year, our youth group encourages graduating seniors to identify a mentor who will stick with them for 90 days (the first semester of college), checking in and touching base, being available for encouragement and advice in this new stage of their lives.
A mentor is an experienced and trusted advisor. Someone who can support and guide you, usually in a specific area. They typically take the time to get to know you and the challenges you’re facing and then use their understanding and personal experience to help you improve. They may be one or two steps ahead of you in your profession or in life, and they have some wisdom to share so you’re not re-inventing the wheel.
A mentor can wear a lot of hats. Depending on the relationship, a mentor can be a role model, teacher, counselor, advisor, sponsor, advocate and ally. Bottom line: a mentor helps a person become a better version of him or herself.
The word Mentor comes from Greek Mythology. Ulysses entrusted his son Telemachus to the care and direction of his old and trusted friend, Mentor, before setting out on his epic voyage. Telemachus was guided and advised by Mentor.
The best mentorships are more like the relationship between a parent and adult child than between a boss and employee. They’re characterized by mutual respect, trust, shared values, and good communication.
DO I NEED A MENTOR?
We all need mentoring at some points through life. If you’ve ever gone to an older sister or trusted older relative for advice, that’s a small slice of mentoring. Chances are, you’ve probably already had one or been one yourself, even if it wasn’t “official.” In many ways, our parents (especially as we got older) may have been mentors to us; teachers or coaches certainly can be as well.
Unlike a therapist or life coach (or teacher/coach role), a mentor relationship is usually less formal and you’re not paying for it. It’s a mutually agreed upon relationship that can actually be mutually beneficial.
A lot of times “reverse-mentoring” occurs… you set out in a mentor-mentee relationship and the mentor ends up learning from you as well. This is obvious when there’s a generational difference. Your grandfather teaches you wood working or carpentry (you’re like an apprentice) & you end up showing him how DropBox works or how to text a photo to his friends.
Scripture recognizes the benefits of mentoring/teaching relationships. Titus 2:4-8 encourages older women to train younger women in basic relational areas like marriage & raising kids. That’s one of the reasons we keep doing this podcast!
What should you look for in a Mentor?
A keen interest in helping others.
- First-hand experience, knowledge, and insights in the area in which you want to be mentored –mentoring should be built on solid and concrete advice and guidance.
- Relationship building and interpersonal skills
- Dedicated long-term time commitment (important because if you start a mentoring journey with someone, it’s vital to see it through).
- Motivating, encouraging, and inspiring energy when you meet.
- Someone who can help you identify goals.
Mentors are potentially giving you hours they could otherwise spend with family or their own pursuits, but don’t rule out someone who seems “busy.” You can set a schedule that works for both of you if they’re willing.
What Should you look for in a Mentee? (or how should a mentee behave?)
It shouldn’t be up to the mentor to keep the relationship going. Chances are, you’ve asked the mentor for his/her time & you should be the one setting up times for discussion and feedback.
A mentee should be curious, responsible and engaged. If you aren’t planning on being invested, don’t initiate the relationship. If you’re canceling, rescheduling, or regularly showing up late, you’re not being courteous and respecting the time your mentor has offered.
Don’t be surprised if your mentor “tests” your level of engagement. They may ask you to read a book & talk about it at the next meeting to gauge your commitment. Doing “homework” such as reflection time, behavior changes, or actual tasks is part of the gig. It’s all about being a better person & growing. None of that happens without change & a little discomfort.
What Might a Mentoring Relationship Look Like?
Unlike a life-coach relationship, a mentor is more directive. Once your goals are clear, the mentor is probably going to do most of the talking when you meet. (A life coach, by contrast, acts more like a counselor, asking lots of questions & giving you time to reflect & figure things out yourself).
A mentoring relationship might involve some networking. If you’re working towards a goal and an issue comes up that a mentor is less familiar with, they might include another, more experienced person in your next meeting to weigh in temporarily. That’s not a violation of your relationship—think of it as an extension of your resource pool.
Ground Rules—these will be different for each relationship. Should decide on basic schedule…are we meeting twice a month or weekly? Can I call you or reach you in between times? How long will meetings last?
Clarify what you expect (or hope to get) from the relationship, match it against your mentor’s expectations, and reach consensus. It makes sense to set some reach-able short term goals AND one or two main long-term goals and then check back on the progress of those at pre-determined times.
“In two months, let’s come back to this list and see what progress we’ve made.” Course corrections can be made if situations/goals change or if you veer off the path too far.
Accountability is VITAL, so ask yourself: are you able to take feedback? Constructive criticism? Are you willing to be teachable?
HOW TO FIND A MENTOR
Who are you drawn to? Who do you admire & why?
Ask others their impressions/opinions or about their experiences interacting with someone you’re considering.
Be sure their worldview doesn’t conflict with yours.
Question others who have mentors how they found that person.
Pray for God to bring someone into your sphere.
Ask them out to coffee & see where it leads!
DISCIPLESHIP AND MENTORING
In a church setting, we probably hear both of these terms quite a bit, but they’re not synonymous.
Certainly, there’s a lot of overlap between the two. Both involve teaching and guiding. And if you and your mentor share values of faith, the advice and guidance your mentor gives will no doubt include spiritual direction as well.
Jesus definitely mentored the 12 apostles. He took them aside for private teaching—more personal than what He presented to the crowds. He pointed out areas where they needed to grow or where they lacked knowledge.
Wikipedia: “In the ancient world a disciple is a follower or adherent of a teacher. It is not the same as being a student in the modern sense. A disciple in the ancient biblical world actively imitated both the life and teaching of the master. It was a deliberate apprenticeship which made the fully formed disciple a living copy of the master.”
Discipleship goes a step further than a mentoring relationship. With discipleship, your goal is to point someone beyond YOURSELF and beyond THEMSELVES to a more perfect Master. There is still accountability and teachability but the goal is for the relationship to result in
- spiritual growth,
- a closer understanding and relationship to God
- demonstration of how to walk out decisions, relationships and hardship with and for God
- fruit
A discipler may be a trusted advisor, but her goal is not for the disciple to “be like me” or “do it like I do it,” but for both parties to get out of the way and look more like Jesus.
The apostle Paul put it this way just before addressing a whole lot of stuff that was going wrong in the Corinthian church. Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.
There is benefit to following someone in the flesh who has walked with Jesus longer than you have or more intimately than you have.
Chris Nye wrote an article in 2019 for TGC that has some great advice for those of you who might be looking for a mentor. It’s titled How Not to Find a Mentor. 🙂
I was ordained as a pastor just shy of 21. In hindsight, I was probably too young. At the time, I had a strange naïveté about pastors and ministry leaders, while simultaneously feeling in over my head with the demands of youth ministry.
To combat this, I started reaching out to every pastor I knew who was older than me. I was working in a large church and grabbed time with nearly every older pastor on staff, including our senior pastor. I’d email his assistant to get a lunch on his calendar every eight weeks or so. The only thing that matched my curiosity was my desperation.
I took this practice outside my church to other leaders in the area, buying them coffee and picking their brains on youth ministry, marriage, seminary options, money, kids, discipleship, writing sermons—everything. Looking back, I cringe at my former self: an overly confident first-year pastor hounding men much busier and more important than me. They were gracious not only to reply to my email, but to actually spend an occasional hour with me.
Since that time, I’ve spent more than a decade in pastoral ministry, and now 20-somethings often ask me for advice on how to find mentors. Here are five bits of advice I offer in terms of what not to do.
1. Don’t assume wise people will approach you.
In Proverbs, wisdom is to be sought like a righteous woman crying out (Prov. 1:20) or like precious silver (Prov. 2:4). To find wise people, then, we have to take initiative. In your pursuit of finding them, remember you will be the one who will reach out. Every time. The first time and the 41st time, you will be the one who reaches out, sets up a time, and asks the questions. Sometimes, wiser older people will check in on us, but this is an exception. In general, we will need to be the ones who reach out, asking for someone’s time in a respectful way.
2. Don’t ask them to be ‘your mentor.’
It’s daunting to be asked to be someone’s mentor. A lot of wise people will say “no” to this broad of a request, mostly because they don’t know what you mean by it. Instead, work to define the term, or go my route and never tell them “mentoring” is what they’re doing. Here’s what I mean: spend time with the same few wise people, absorbing their wisdom without knighting them as Your Mentor. Before long, that’s precisely what they’ll become, perhaps without even knowing it.
I realized this as I suddenly found myself calling four or five people “my mentor.” How did this happen? I came to see that mentorship is a slow burn, cultivated over many coffees or meals. I kept asking wise people in my life questions until, one day, I realized I’d learned so much from them they must be, well, a mentor.
3. Don’t arrive unprepared.
Wise people don’t like to waste time. This is different from saying “all wise people are busy.” In fact, wise people are just efficient, devoting attention to the things they value. If you arrive without any game plan, questions, or goals for the meeting with your mentor, you will waste their time by lollygagging with 20 minutes of small talk before they try to navigate the conversation.
I’ve learned to always come with at least a few questions prepared. It’s also important to consider your mentor’s expertise. Some of my mentors have been more theological or academic, and I rarely bother them with more “soul care” or emotional issues. I pick their brains on issues of interpretation, while I may ask my pastoral mentors about how they balance ministry and family.
4. Don’t abuse their contact information.
Many young people I pastor think mentorship requires a weekly, hour-long meeting that comes with constant on-call privileges. Though different mentors will have different availability, in general try not to badger your mentor every time something pops into your mind. Save up questions and make your time with them rich with good conversation.
I create little notes in my phone for each wise person in my life, where I jot down topics and questions to consider chatting with them about. With patience, you can often answer your own questions after some time. If you’re constantly getting answers from wise people without wrestling with the issues first yourself, you’ll never develop your own wisdom.
5. Don’t look for or wait for ‘the one.’
Don’t believe the lie of the “one mentor.” It rarely works this way. Yes, over the course of our lives, certain people will end up having more influence on us than others, but there’s never just one. No, wisdom is developed through numerous voices. This is why Proverbs says, “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety” (Prov. 11:14). “An abundance of counselors” is always the best approach. Grab time with multiple mentors, and you’ll put less pressure on all of them.
‘An abundance of counselors’ is always the best approach. Grab time with multiple mentors, and you’ll put less pressure on all of them.
One of the beauties of being a Christian is being saved into a new family with many older brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. We find the “abundance of counselors” in our midst as we commit to Jesus’s body, the church. But I would go a step further: we must not just commit to “the church” but “a local church.” Here we discover potential mentors are closer and more plentiful than we thought. These seasoned saints can help us become “wise”—not in a general sense, but in the specific shape of Jesus, discipling us to be more and more like him.
Jesus, after all, is the ultimate voice of wisdom. None can replace his role. Many young people I talk to seem to be looking for a Replacement Jesus to call them their “mentor.” Those people will never be found, and if we keep looking for them, we’ll hoist on them a burden they can’t bear and a set of expectations they’ll never meet. All great mentors point us not to themselves, but to our Master Jesus, “the power of God and the wisdom of God” personified forever (1 Cor. 1:24).